Colorado Cool (Avenue that is)

When you visit downtown Grand Junction, make sure you go a block south of Main Street. Here you’ll find some of the coolest shops on the Western Slope. Read the original version here:

Colorado Cool

By Cecily Whiteside

For the past several years, the merchants on Colorado Avenue have pressed the city for Christmas lights, attempting to extend the Downtown shopping district. This year, they took the “bough” by the horns, and made it happen themselves!

As you walk down Colorado Avenue, you will notice the lights, not only in the trees that line the road, but also in the shop windows and storefront bushes.

“It was actually my brother’s idea,” says Seth Anderson of Loki. “Alex [from Roasted Coffee] and I just got the ball rolling.” In fact, a number of the stores along Colorado Avenue helped create this festive makeover. Lowes sponsored the lights, many of the art students associated with the new CMU Art Gallery on Colorado Avenue volunteered the labor needed to put them up, the city agreed to “turn on the lights” by supplying power and also reimbursed some of the cost of supplies.

“It was a community thing,” says Seth. “People this time of year don’t have a whole lot of extra time, especially small business owners. We worked with what we have, we don’t have huge trees, but there are bushes. The art students really helped, too. They did the creative lights in the windows, and a lot of the work outside.”

It has increased traffic and visibility for Colorado Avenue, and makes the Downtown shopping district stronger and more vital.

“The retail soul is important to Downtown,” says Seth. The festivity of Christmas lights is part of encouraging that soul. “Just since the lights went up, our store’s traffic has been through the roof. I’m not saying its just the lights, but…” maybe they had something to do with it, though.

With evening descending earlier and earlier this time of year, the festive lights on Colorado Avenue make for a cool stop while holiday shopping.